Magnetism – Charm as a fatal flaw 

Magnetism, a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, explores celebrity glamour and how magnetism isn’t always a forgiving trait. The story provides a portrayal of George Hannaford, whose construct explores desire and resentment through a partially disintegrating marriage and a threat rooting from unrequited love.  

Magnetism centers George Hannaford, an actor with such charm that most call him magnetic, yet Fitzgerald presents this as a fatal quality. This characteristic causes insecurity in his wife, Kay, while George faces temptation by a young star, feels jealousy for Kay and a blackmail attempt by another woman. Fitzgerald expresses how a pursuit of this lifestyle could lead to psychological ruin with the disintegration of one’s relationships. 

Allure is explored as an external force, almost differing as a separate entity to the person who beholds it. “You can’t control charm. It’s simply got to be used. You’ve got to keep your hand in if you have it and go through life attaching people to you that you don’t want.” 

This quote pictures “charm” as something unpredictable, with people wanting to obtain it, while it also inevitably attracts unwanted attention and is so, a burden. It requires constant perfecting, as you must “keep your hand in it” as though it is a superficial quality and never a raw portrayal. 

Fitzgerald intended to link this theme with the roaring twenties and the time period’s emptiness following World War One, using jazz and feathers to cover the deeper societal problems that existed. 

Throughout the narrative, the reality of celebrity glamour was clearly a central theme as it prompted the reader to address how being admired by everyone could cause loneliness, highlighting the potential emptiness behind charisma. 

George “tried to force down his personal distress, his discomfort” in front of the woman who tried to blackmail him, with Fitzgerald including a long description of his “vague feeling” to normalise sadness within celebrities. Fitzgerald describes how envy can overtake someone, especially celebrities, who sometimes have ulterior motives behind their relationships. 

We tend to grow to despise those who ‘have it all’ with George’s blackmailer being a perfect example of human hatred for what we can’t obtain ourselves. She is presented as “understanding” his agitation and “loving the struggle in his face,” conveying how humans crave superiority while dismissing how their actions reflect on their morals. 

The character of George Hannaford seemed to reflect Fitzgerald’s ideals, being seemingly inspired from his own marriage with Zelda. While Hannaford’s character was a well-made actor with a problematic wife, Fitzgerald endured the same pattern as he and his wife, constantly accused each other of taking each other’s work. Zelda, especially, blamed her husband for stealing ideas from her diaries for his novels. 

With his own life slowly worsening, the narrator within Magnetism tries to distance himself and the constructs within the short story from love which he pictures as something mechanical. 

Fitzgerald could have been implying his own sense of unease at the situation with his wife, perhaps regretting the distance caused by his own career. 

However, George suffers the consequences of jealousy and broken relationships, highlighting how personal success can still require co-dependency on someone else. George “felt common and he felt unstable,” despite the consistency in his career which has made no real change throughout the narrative, so finance may not be in question here, but rather his emotional wealth.  

Through an exploration of Fitzgerald’s potential individual experiences, Magnetism proves how this quality can be two sided, and that charisma can be a suboptimal trait. Ultimately, Fitzgerald asks his readers to question celebrity culture and demonstrates the value of upholding sincere relationships.